Clara Kensie - Run to You Part Five - Fifth Touch

I studied Tristan’s face in the mirror. He looked tired, but his jaw was set. He’d failed to keep me safe in Twelve Lakes, and he was determined to make up for that in Lilybrook.

His phone dinged and he swiped the screen. “It’s another psychic responding to my email,” he said. “He owns a metaphysical shop in New Mexico. He even has a crystal ball, just like in Brinda’s drawing. He said he’ll keep an eye out for Jillian and Logan and call me right away if they show up.”

He wrapped his arms around me. “See, Clockwise? I’m getting lots of responses like this. Everything will be fine.”

I turned so I faced him and brought him in close, inhaling his scent of soap and strength and masculinity. The tighter he held me, the more my lungs opened up. Even the Nightmare Eyes dimmed a bit. I needed to stay here, in Lilybrook, in Tristan’s arms.

I couldn’t leave Lilybrook to look for my siblings, so Lilybrook would have to be my headquarters. Command Central. The mission: Find Jillian and Logan. Tristan and Aaron were my soldiers. From my post, I would oversee their investigations and help in every way I could.

Chapter Eighteen

Miss Bennett, the enthusiastic geometry teacher, jabbered away while scribbling angles and formulas on the whiteboard. The dry-erase markers squeaked, their acerbic scent permeating the room and making me slightly nauseated. The colorful triangles, squares and circles reminded me of Brinda’s crayon drawings. Chin propped in hand, I pretended to be copying the shapes and formulas into my notebook, but actually, I was writing a note.

The Connellys believed I was happily going about my life while imprisoned in Lilybrook because of Deirdre’s dream of a little silver-walled house that filled up with my blood, and had left the responsibility of finding my siblings to Tristan and Aaron. But I wasn’t happily going about my life. For the past three days, I’d been trying to contact my sister. Psionically.

I knew I couldn’t contact her telepathically—I could only do that with Tristan, and only when we were close. But when my family lived in Twelve Lakes, Jillian had been trying to develop remote vision, the same psionic ability our father had. Or at least, the psionic ability our dad used to have, before the APR neutralized him. Jillian had made some progress before her terrible headaches and bloody noses had driven her to quit—headaches and bloody noses that were manufactured by our mother so Jillian wouldn’t discover our parents’ murderous secrets.

Maybe now that our imprisoned, neutralized mother could no longer give her those headaches, Jillian could develop her mobile eye again.

Jillian thought I was dead, so she wouldn’t purposely send out her mobile eye to find me. But maybe if she thought of me, she would see me in Lilybrook. Alive. Safe.

Chances were slim. Almost zero. But I had to try.

As Miss Bennett scrawled formulas on the whiteboard, I continued my letter to Jillian.

I’d filled almost a page, willing Jillian to see it through my eyes, when the sound of my name brought me back to the classroom. I looked up from the notebook to see Miss Bennett, marker in hand, looking at me expectantly.

“Oh. Um... could you repeat the question, please?” I stammered.

“What is the formula for the surface area of a pyramid?” she repeated, not patiently.

I turned to my notebook to find the page with that formula, and saw that I hadn’t written a long letter to Jillian after all. After a few lines I’d stopped writing words, and instead had drawn a pair of circles, filled in solid black.

My Nightmare Eyes.

“You should know that formula by now, Tessa,” Miss Bennett said.

“I...” I sputtered, staring at the Nightmare Eyes on my paper. “I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Miss Bennett shook her head. “Can anyone help her out?”

In the seat in front of mine, Winter shot her hand up and quite cheerfully provided the formula.

“Very good, Winter.” With a disappointed look at me, Miss Bennett continued her lesson.

Cheeks burning, I gave my head a little shake to break the hold the Nightmare Eyes had on me. I flipped to a blank page and obediently copied the information from the whiteboard onto my paper. But once Miss Bennett turned her attention to someone else, I started a new letter to Jillian. This time, I kept it short and simple:

I stared at it, hard, until my eyes dried out and the words turned blurry. Then I blinked, and stared at the words again.

Was Jillian seeing this? What if the fog was blocking her ability to see through me? I’d been writing notes to her for three days; maybe the fog was the reason she wasn’t seeing them.

I could lift it a little....

I stared at the note again.

Something shifted in my peripheral vision—Winter, turning to smirk at me over her shoulder. She was listening to me, telepathically. Her amused snarl burned into me, along with the Nightmare Eyes, reminding me that I was Killers’ Spawn.

Ignoring both Winter and the Nightmare Eyes, I lifted the fog higher, and focused on my note.

I couldn’t tell if Jillian was seeing through me or not. The only thing I could sense was the multitude of students who’d sat in this chair before me. Trenton Abrams, last period. He thought Miss Bennett was hot. Julie Weaver, two years ago, wishing Tristan Connelly would dump Melanie Brunswick and ask her out instead. Beth Whitcomb, ten years ago, doodling hearts and stars in her notebook.

The bell rang, and fog still raised, vaguely aware of Miss Bennett telling me to pay more attention next time, I shoved everything into my book bag and walked out of the classroom. If Jillian had connected to me via mobile eye, she would be seeing everything I was seeing and hearing everything I was hearing right now.

“Jillian,” I murmured, holding a textbook in front of my mouth so no one would think I was talking to myself, “can you hear me? It’s me, Tessa. I’m alive. I’m trying to find you.”

The halls were so crowded. Was there an assembly or something? If Jillian was watching through me right now, she’d see that I was in a high school, not locked away in a gray cell somewhere. As I pushed through the students, I saw a blue flyer taped to the wall:

I let my gaze linger on it. “See that, Jillian? I’m in Lilybrook, Wisconsin,” I murmured behind my textbook. “Come to Lilybrook. It’s safe here.”

It was becoming hard to concentrate. Everyone was on their way to that pep rally, all walking and talking. So loud. The mass grew bigger and denser by the second, everyone chattering. Brian Edes plodded along. Susie Berkowitz and Tamara Yonkers rushed past him. Girls in acid-washed jeans, boys in brown leather jackets. Junie Lyons. Ben Guntherson.

The bell rang but the hall wasn’t emptying. Girls in poodle skirts and saddle shoes passed by, intermingling with scruffy boys in flannel shirts.

Poodle skirts.

That wasn’t right.

The students in the hall weren’t really there. They used to be there, but they weren’t now. Now they were visions.

The pep rally flyer wasn’t there either.

The fog. I’d lifted it too high.

Dizzy, woozy, I stumbled to the row of shiny lockers, leaning against them for support. Big mistake—the wall forced more visions into me.

Rochelle Mellon in bell-bottoms and sporting big, feathered hair.